Though the parlatorio visit is not until the end of the week, the news slips out fast enough in the pockets of the carpenters or through the mortar between the bricks in the walls. There are a few local Ferrarese old enough to remember Suora Magdalena’s reputation for miracles, and by the end of the first day a small crowd has gathered outside the gates. The abbess accepts a few scribbled condolences but is adamant (despite a protracted private audience with Suora Umiliana) that there will be no public showing of the body. Instead, the convent holds a vigil by the coffin, but only choir nuns are allowed to attend, and with the abbess leading them the atmosphere remains dignified and restrained. The burial takes place the next morning, immediately the twenty-four-hour laying-out period is over: a simple, moving ceremony, with tears, prayers, and words of joy and reassurance from the abbess and Father Romero.
It is, however, not over yet.
“I AM NOT sure I understand your meaning, Suora Umiliana,” the abbess says coolly.
In chapter, Zuana, like the rest of the room, is trying to keep her eyes on both women at once.
“What I mean, Madonna Abbess, is that the taking of the soul of Suora Magdalena at the same moment as the falling of our Blessed Lord from the cross is most surely a sign.” She pauses, but only briefly. Her mind is made up. “I believe we are being told that there is not enough devotion in Santa Caterina. That with all our celebrations and public performances and fame, we are neglecting our true course, which is prayer and humility, discipline and obedience.”
She delivers the speech well; these days it seems as if her piety has a natural performance within it. The chapter holds its breath. In all their years of sparring, the challenge has never been so direct.
In contrast, the abbess smiles broadly. “And yet I see a room before me filled with nuns who celebrate God with all their hearts and souls. There is surely no more joyful or productive convent anywhere in Ferrara.”
“There are those who would disagree.”
“Really?” She looks around the room as if they—whoever they may be—are about to speak. Suora Felicità opens her mouth but Umiliana silences her with a look.
“There are forces abroad greater than us or the city of Ferrara, Madonna Abbess. I am speaking of those within our Holy Mother church, the good fathers of Trento, who might find all manner of faults within the convent of Santa Caterina.”
The abbess, who is done with charm now, stares at her coldly. Her eyes pass over the gathered nuns, and a fair number of them at the back now look away from her. Apparently there have been some conversations within her convent that the Mother Abbess, for all her acuity, has not been privy to.
“Ah! You would prefer to live in Bologna, perhaps. Or Milan, where they no longer play convent instruments and can sing only the plainest of settings when they perform to the outside world. You have, I assume, heard of these changes?”
Benedicta lets out an audible gasp. Arranging the score for The Lamentations of Jeremiah has been keeping her awake at night, and she seems less joyful than she used to be.
The novice mistress gives a little shrug. “There are sisters in those cities who would say there is more worship in the psalms they give up to God now than in all the fancy settings they once entertained visitors with.”
While a number of the choir nuns are now visibly alarmed, from the rows at the back of chapter there is a rustling wave of support.
Zuana finds herself imagining a ripe boil: the way it grows under the surface, swelling, hardening, gathering pus, and however many poultices are applied it will not soften or heal of its own accord. Such is the ailment within the body of the convent now.
“For a novice mistress whose greatest desire it is to close down contact with the outside world, you seem to know a great deal about what goes on there.”
The abbess glances briefly at the gate censor sister, who reads all correspondence that moves in and out and who has the decency now not to be able to meet her eyes.
But Umiliana holds her ground. “Santa Caterina could be as great as any of those convents. He has already given us the purest voices with which to praise Him.”
And now she looks toward Serafina, so the rest of the nuns immediately follow the gaze. Not, however, the abbess.
“So. If I have understood you correctly, Suora Umiliana, you see the work of the termites in the chapel as God’s message to us that we are failing in our duties toward Him?”
“I see it as a sign for us to mend our ways, yes,” Umiliana says again.
Zuana thinks again of the boil and how at such times the only way forward is to lance it, whatever mess and pain it might cause.
“A sign. Ah, yes, signs—they are such a rich language.”
The abbess looks out over the assembled chapter. And her eyes are clear, no hint of fear in her.
